


Ember

by atsuyuri_sama



Series: Behind Glowing Eyes [7]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Self-Blame, Stiles Angst, Violent Mama Stilinski death witnessed by kid!Stiles, it leaves BIG emotional scars, mama stilinski's death, minor spoilers for S2E9, very minor pre-Sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 03:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atsuyuri_sama/pseuds/atsuyuri_sama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles doesn't like his name, so he goes by 'Stiles'. Stiles doesn't like to lie, but he has no choice.</p><p>The two are connected, in a memory that leaves shiny, persistent, painful burn scars (that no one sees... he wishes someone would).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ember

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Teen Wolf.
> 
> This is one big ball of angst; sorry about that. It hit me like a brick in the head, and I wrote it in fifteen minutes - the quickest one-shot I've ever produced. So I'm proud of it, but still. I DO love Stiles, you know. Really, I do.

Stiles doesn’t like his name.

It’s the last word his mother said (blood spilling wet and fast out of her mouth), so Stiles doesn’t like it. Whenever he hears it, his ears roar and he can’t breathe, because all he hears are her wheezing, panicked breaths. The only two people in the world alive who know his name know not to say it; nobody else knows it, so that’s okay.

Stiles doesn’t like to lie.

The first time he lied (because Stiles was raised to tell the truth, and he loved his parents) was to his father. John found him, asked him what happened. He said he didn’t know – when he had finally gotten back up, she was like this. It doesn’t matter that Stiles doesn’t like to lie, especially not to his father; it seems like the older he gets, the more he ends up lying, though. The people who know it don’t tell John; what John doesn’t know can still hurt him, so it’s still not okay.

Stiles isn't fond of parties.

The first time he went to a party he was too young to remember it; the last time he went to a party was because Scott dragged him (and nothing happened, so Stiles is dealing with it); it was a party in the middle that ruined it all for him. Someone spiked Lydia’s punch. Stiles saw… God, it was everything he is most scared of all at once. He hallucinated that John knew. John called him by his _name,_ and knew Stiles' lies – _all_ of them. And John blamed him (as Stiles knows John will if the Sheriff ever learns the truth), as he should. It hurt. So Stiles isn’t fond of parties, but it could be worse. Perhaps it should be alcohol that he is picky about, but… well, he doesn’t know what her punch was spiked _with_ , and he likes the free feeling of being drunk too much (he blames the inherent alcoholism in his genes) to immediately assume that it was the culprit.

He doesn’t tell John about the werewolves because he doesn’t want his father to get as caught up in it as he is, doesn’t want his father to get hurt. John is all Stiles has left, and if John died because of something Stiles led him to…

_"Genim! You killed your mother. You killed her and now you’re killing me.”_

**-Ember-**

He was ten. He was two months and four days away from meeting an awesome boy named Scott. He was three days away from starting the fifth grade. He was on his last day of seeing his mother alive, and one day away from seeing his father drunk for the first (but not last) time. It was his fault.

It was Amanda’s day off, and summer break for Stiles. She let him sleep in, made him breakfast, and played video games with him all morning. They went out front after lunch, and she played catch with him. It was his fault.

He’d known since he was five years old to watch the street before he walked into it. He’d known since he was three that sometimes balls didn’t go where you threw them. He’d known since forever that Amanda would do whatever she could to protect him, love him, and make him happy. It was his fault.

She was chasing him when she threw the ball – somewhere in the middle, it had become less ‘catch’ and more ‘run and tumble and occasionally throw a projectile’. It went just over his head (he remembers the rough feel of the ball skating over his fingertips; that's why he plays a sport where he doesn't have to _touch_ a ball, though no one's ever asked). He turned around and chased after it. She screamed at him to stop. It was his fault.

He did stop – or, tried to, anyway. Loose gravel at the end of the driveway sent him sprawling when he froze. It was his fault.

He still has nightmares sometimes – vicious, vivid things, even worse than some of the shit that werewolves have brought into his life – about that car. He had fallen, spread across the neighborhood road, all gangly limbs and no muscle (because  of the stupid Adderall: it was either grow _up,_ but too skinny to be healthy, or forever remain too short to be reasonable, because the meds stunt growth), and his head had turned to the side. Black and white sparkles had danced across his vision, because he had hit his head on the asphalt a little hard. It had taken a bit of blinking to see the car that he could _hear._ It was a dark blue monster, its black wheels bearing down on his face like a grim reaper out of the old stories. It was his fault.

Amanda had grabbed his ankles (and her grip had bruised; days after the fact, the ghost of her hands remained wrapped around his skin in blue and purple and green bands of shape) and (he hates his ankles)  _pulled._ The force of it had raked his back over the gravel, tearing his skin, and had thrown her forward over him at the same time. Her skin had been soft and warm, her scent familiar and comforting. It was his fault.

The SUV would have gone on by without incident (it was in the middle of a swerve, finally noticing he had been in its way), both of them clear of its path. But Stiles’ reflexes caught up with him, far, _far_ too late. It was his fault.

Fear lends strength. In the middle of a disaster, there are miracle stories of men doing things that are impossible, and saving lives because of it. You never hear the stories where those super-human reflexes get someone killed. It happens; everything happens once. It was his fault.

He kicked up, striking her stomach, his body still sure he needed to get away. His belated scream covered her breathless grunt. His hands and her hands, gripping each other's shoulders too tight, acted like a freakish fulcrum. When his kick sent her body up, his hands kept her shoulders down. She landed on her back in the middle of the road, her adult body much longer than his, and for a split second their heads touched, his arms clutching her shoulders, and hers his. Already, his body was completing the evasive maneuver and flipping over to sit up. It was his fault.

If life was in any way kind, he would have at least been slow enough to avoid seeing it happen. But he had time to sit up. To hear the screech of brakes. To meet her wide, amber eyes (he had her eyes, and his father hated it, even if John never said anything: John couldn’t look him in the eye when he was drunk). And then to watch her face covered by bright tire rims, too-dark rubber spinning too fast, and dark blue paint. To hear the literal _crunch_ of her skull, the gurgling silence of her ruined throat. It was his fault.

He never saw the SUV drive off; his gaze was frozen on his mother’s face. Her make-up didn’t matter; her face was too pale, and where blood ran (everywhere) too red; the gold of her eyes was dimming too quick, and not focused. It was his fault.

“Ggg…” she slurred, and he began rocking, because before she got to the second sound, he knew what she was trying to say. “G…n…m… L’v…” And her sentence choked off in a wet gurgle before stopping utterly. It was his fault.

It was his fault.

It was his fault.

(Later, he would not speak for a week, his throat too raw from screaming, desperately, for fifteen minutes straight. His first words would be an entreaty – too blank, too flat, to be his voice – that no one _ever, **ever**_ call him by his name again. It would be another month before he spoke again, whereupon he would, oddly, never shut up.) It was his fault.

**-Ember-**

He didn’t like his name, and so he gave himself a new one. ‘Stiles’ – “a structure which provides people a passage through or over a fence or boundary via steps, ladders, or narrow gaps”. His new name would be his passage – the thing that allowed him to survive the crushing _guilt_ of his mother’s murder – from pre-accident to post-accident. There were countless cultures that gave their people new names at coming-of-age ceremonies… if unwillingly being the cause of your own mother’s murder wasn’t a growing up experience, he didn’t know what was.

He didn’t like lying, but after watching in his silence as his father grieved, Stiles knew he would _never_ be able to tell John. The older man was often helpless after Stiles’ nightmares for years afterward, because his son would clam up, just wanting to be held. It was his fault, and he couldn't even seek the full comfort of knowing, absolving parental arms... he had to settle for a desperate grasp that didn't (couldn't) understand and still, _still_ tried so hard to help Stiles. The panic attacks weren't even as bad as waking up at night like that.

And to keep John safe, he kept lying. Because Mom was _his fault_ and he would literally _die_ before Dad became his fault, too.

No one knew; the wolves continued to try and convince him to tell John. That was okay: they cared about Stiles, and were doing the only thing they knew to do, _because_ they cared. Didn’t mean he was going to, didn’t mean they understood, but it was okay.

And every day, the weight of his name burned a life into his heart. And every day the weight of his secret cast a blazing, unforgiving light on his soul that only he could see. And every day, the weight of every new secret, every inch of distance, (every moment of safety), every moment of discontent between he and John where it had once been so happy, ate at his self-confidence and self-worth.

It was his fault she was dead.

It would be his fault if John died.

His faults burned like an ember he couldn’t put out. One day, Stiles would burn to death.

(Unless someone – who was trapped just as much – put it out… Together. The Hale Fire wasn’t Derek’s fault.)


End file.
